National Geographic, September, 1960
Before leaving Nairobi, we visited Nairobi
Royal National Park, where animals still
roam within four miles of the city center, in
one of the greater achievements of wildlife
preservation.
This 44-square-mile sanctuary, with the
adjacent 455 square miles of the Ngong Na
tional Reserve, is like a vast show window
for the rest of East Africa. The park hand
book lists 64 different species of mammals,
452 birds, and 34 reptiles.
Constant contact with visitors' vehicles has
helped the animals to lose their fear. We
were particularly intrigued by one large male
giraffe, led by curiosity so close to the Land
Rover that we could not see the top of him
through the windshield.
I now feel that I. can amplify Dr. Samuel
Johnson's description of the beast. He de
scribed it as "an Abyssinian animal, taller
than an elephant but not so thick."
"... They Run Into Us!"
Our old friend Basil Duke, commissioner of
the native district of Madi, had invited us to
spend New Year's Eve with him at his head
quarters in Moyo. Moyo lay 600 miles away,
on the frontier between Uganda and Sudan.
We whipped fast through Kenya, passing
down into the Great Rift Valley and up again
into the increasingly cooler highlands beyond
Nakuru. Then we dropped down again into
the red dust of Uganda, and as the altimeter
fell, the thermometer rose. There were no
longer clouds in the sky. The sun burned
brassily through a mist of heat haze and
scorched the plains to a uniform drab gray.
Moyo, even to one familiar with Africa,
could easily go unnoticed. It is identified
only on large-scale maps and then only in
small lettering. But Moyo is a place of im
portance, the administrative center of the
Madi tribal territory that straddles the Albert
Nile. Basil Duke, when we were there, was
Moyo's one white inhabitant.
We found him standing with an African in
front of his thatched bungalow, dismally re
garding the battered front of a new red pick-up
truck.
"Look at this," he said mournfully.
"Just
look at this."
"What happened?" I asked by way of
greeting.
"Run into something?"
Basil, whom we hadn't seen for four years,
plunged straight into one of his problems.
"We don't run into things. They run into
us.
Another of those ruddy rhinoceroses!
Just a mile out of Moyo last night.
"Well, nice to see you anyway," he added as
a sort of afterthought.
Basil is one of those satisfactory people to
whom the passage of time means little. Our
friendship was formed many years ago in
Sudan and reaches back over many meetings.
When we part we say, "Well, so long," un
demonstratively; and when we meet again,
after several years, we take up the conversa
tion where it broke off.
We quenched our thirst with long cool
drinks served on the veranda by an African
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